Plane crash in Turkey probed

62 Spanish troops among 75 killed

May 27, 2003|By From Tribune news services.

TRABZON, Turkey — Investigators searched for clues Tuesday on what caused an airplane carrying Spanish peacekeepers back from Afghanistan to crash into a fog-shrouded mountain in Turkey, killing all 75 people aboard.

Blasts continued amid the wreckage after Monday's crash, apparently from ammunition on the plane exploding, sending twisted and charred metal flying over a wide area.

In the debris were soldiers' diaries, family pictures, CDs and a half-burned camera, witnesses said.

Most of the 62 Spanish soldiers on board had just finished a four-month peacekeeping mission in the Afghan capital, Kabul, working at the city's airport. They represented nearly half of Spain's peacekeeping force in the capital.

"Although we are known for being tough, we are devastated," said Spanish Gen. Emilio Perez Alaman, whose mechanized division lost 20 soldiers.

"This is an appalling tragedy, given that these soldiers were serving the interest of peace in a difficult mission in Afghanistan," NATO Secretary General George Robertson said during a visit to the Czech Republic.

The Russian-made YAK-42D, heading from Kabul to Zarazoga, Spain, was trying to stop for fuel in the Black Sea port of Trabzon. The plane approached Trabzon but was too high so it turned away, then crashed in the mountains about 470 miles northeast of Ankara.

Spanish Defense Minister Federico Trillo said bad weather, including fog and strong winds, appeared to be to blame.

Contact with the plane was lost shortly before the crash, and aviation officials speculated that there also may have been a technical malfunction.

The airplane, which belonged to a charter company named Ukrainian-Mediterranean Airlines, was carrying 12 Ukrainian crew members and a Belarusian flight manager along with the Spanish peacekeepers.

Fifty-four of the Spanish peacekeepers were returning from Afghanistan.

They were Spain's first deaths in 17 months of peacekeeping in Afghanistan, according to Spanish news reports.

The plane stopped over in Kyrgyzstan and took on more passengers, including more Spanish peacekeepers, said Dutch Lt. Col. Paul Kolken, a spokesman for the peacekeeping force, known as ISAF.

Trillo said that the Turkish military had recovered all the bodies and that Spanish forensic experts who also had flown in would immediately start identifying them.

Gov. Aslan Yildirim of Trabzon suggested that identification would be difficult. "Most bodies are in pieces or dismembered," Yildirim said.

Turkish soldiers could not find the black box flight recorder at the site, which was still covered in fog.